All is quiet in the All-American Town of Bellaire tonight for the most part. It’s the same as yesterday and the days and weeks before.
For Police Chief Richard “Dick” “Flanagan and his officers, it’s not a “too quiet” type of quiet. But a good quiet.
The city of Bellaire has been fairly calm the last few months in relation to callers for its village police force.
It seems the coronavirus pandemic’s quarantine rules, social distancing, and closure of a number of businesses have kept residents indoors and off the department’s radar.
Flanagan, for one, is not complaining.
“As far as the police department goes, everything has just bottomed out,” relayed Flanagan when asked about any changes in the crime rate during the peak of pandemic quarantining. “Believe it or not, the people here have been complying with the mandates, so our activity and traffic and number of calls have really dropped off.
“Crime has pretty much bottomed out, and there is no one out and about.”
It’s theorized that during times of high unemployment drug crimes will increase as those out of work look for ways to cope with the struggle.
There was also the fear of an increase in domestic disputes given the quarantine and stay-at-home style orders coming out of Columbus.
So, was there an increase in drug crimes? Nope. Domestic assaults? That’s also a negative.
“There was no uptick in domestic calls either, and that was one of the few crimes where you could actually take someone to jail,” Flanagan said. “Because of the rules, they were only taking violent crimes, but no, our domestics didn’t see an increase either.”
The Chief is Not Complaining
“I can’t speak for elsewhere, but here in Bellaire, residents were compliant with the mandates of staying in,” Flanagan said. “Other than the exceptions of people going to and from work and going to the store, I’m extremely pleased and happy with the way people here have complied with the governor’s orders.”
That meant fewer traffic stops, less ticket writing, and likely to no one’s disappointment inside PD headquarters, less paperwork.
But it didn’t result in less staffing per shift. All shifts were manned as needed as a somber atmosphere can shift gears to serious right quickly. Better to be prepared for any eventuality.
“It was business as usual here at the department, regular staff 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Flanagan said. “The only major change is we tried to have as little face-to- face contact as possible. We also weren’t actively and aggressively pursuing traffic stops and moving violations. That’s not saying we didn’t pull people over, but if we did stop someone, it would be brief, a warning was given, and the officer kept his or her distance.”
Calls that could be taken over the phone were answered, and officers were instructed to go into a caller’s house only if absolutely necessary.
Flanagan noted there was only one death for COVID-19 in Bellaire, and he credited the Belmont County 911 center staff for giving his officers the proper heads-up to the situation.
They were able to take the needed precautions prior to meeting the EMTs and county coroner at the scene.
A Non-Everlasting Peace
Flanagan knows that the quiet isn’t going to last the summer.
The phased reopenings, while still too methodical for many, show no signs in slowing down. Life is slowly returning to normal.
Temperatures will rise and so will the crime rate at some point.
“Whenever you get more people out and about and increased foot traffic, things will eventually return to normal,” Flanagan said. “But when you’re in the police department, you take the jobs as they come. Every call is different.
“There is no routine traffic stop or routine call. Each one is different.”
Added Duties?
Soon young boys and girls will be returning to baseball and softball diamonds and trying to salvage what little of their seasons they can.
Those plans come with a set of mandatory best practices as part of the Responsible RestartOhio initiative.
Players, coaches, and fans are expected to maintain the 6-foot social distancing rules at all time—in the players’ case, only when not on the playing field.
Fans can sit together if they are part of the same familial unit, otherwise, 6-feet away, and they also must stay off the playing field and remain a minimum 6-feet behind the backstop.
It doesn’t take a lengthy YouTube journey to find that some parents can’t keep themselves off the playing field, and that was before the pandemic.
Who’s ultimately responsible to enforce those rules and, if broken, will the police need to be involved?
Flanagan said he’s not about to stop and arrest people for exercising their constitutional rights, but he did hope fans respected the rules and the game while watching. But at some games, there will already be police presence of a sort.
Lieutenant J.J. Watson of the Bellaire Police Department is one of the softball coaches in town and will be on scene during a good portion of the games.
In that, Flanagan isn’t too worried.
“All the coaches, they are concerned with the safety of the kids, and I don’t think we’re going to have to worry,” Flanagan said. “Lt. Watson has been involved with kids’ sports in this community for 15 years. He does that all on his own time and doesn’t get paid for it.”
